Coffee can cause hallucinations

A lot of things has been written about coffee, as much as people drink it all over the world. Not surprisingly, there has been a lot of myths created about its influence. Some, however, can be scientifically explained.

Coffee is a very controversial drink. Mainly because it contains caffeine. Is drinking coffee bad for our health? Can it be drunk like water? How it improves concentration and arouse energy? These are issues that researchers have been trying to explain for a many years. For now, they came to the agreement. Apart from the fact that for one coffee is beneficial, and for other coffee makes it difficult to function, even in small amounts – it is healthy. Of course, consumed in moderation. It is safe to drink up to 10 small cups of the beverage during the day, which content does not exceed a total of 500 mg of caffeine.

Although for some its still far too much, there are some people who are chronically exceeding the norm. And thus, they may experience side effects. One of them, which was proven by workers of the Australian University La Trobe in Melbourne, are auditory hallucinations. Unjustified audibility of sounds may occur after 5 cups of coffee for people who suffer from high stress level. It was shown thanks to the test carried out by scientists.

92 volunteers took part in this test. All were served coffee, but not in the same quantities. Then, all were treated with the so-called. white noise test – the series of tones of equal loudness, regardless of frequency. They were informed that among the noise, parts of the famous Christmas song can be heard, though in fact this was not true. For every time the participants will be confident that they hear it, they were asked to push a special button.

Finally it turned out that most people who had auditory hallucinations, had also the highest level of caffeine. The researchers therefore opted for the rejection of coffee and other beverages with caffeine in large quantities. They also suggested that a similar phenomenon may be the cause of schizophrenia.